2013 Edmonton Oilers in Review: Ryan Whitney

The firing of Steve Tambellini was not the product of one move or one player, but rather the result of years of poor decision making while at the helm of the Oilers. Ryan Whitney just happens to be a good example of one place that decision making went wrong, and perhaps the preeminent example in 2013.

The title mentions three occasions the Oilers gambled on Whitney, and each time they did so they lost. Let’s look back at those gambles.

The first was the decision to gamble on Whitney being able to play a top-four role in 2013. The Oilers entered the lockout-shortened campaign with a weak defensive depth chart – Jeff Petry and Ladislav Smid were relatively sure things, Nick Schultz was a veteran depth option, and Edmonton desperately needed to get quality minutes out of either untested rookie Justin Schultz or veteran rearguard Ryan Whitney. It was a group that basically required Whitney to return to his pre-injury 2010 performance just to tread water against the rest of the Western Conference.

Consider the following scenario: Ryan Whitney’s injury problems flare up in training camp, Justin Schultz struggles early, and at age 37 Andy Sutton loses a step from last season. It’s a pessimistic scenario, to be sure, but also entirely plausible. If that happens, suddenly the Oilers eight-deep defensive group has just three legitimate top-four defensemen (none of them in the ‘#1 NHL defenseman’ mold) with the fourth spot in the top four a toss-up between a struggling Justin Schultz and Corey Potter. The lesser of that duo gets to pair with either a slowing Andy Sutton or Theo Peckham on the third pairing.

As it happens, Sutton was out of the picture entirely (the Oilers replaced him prior to the start of the season with Mark Fistric) while Justin Schultz started strong but then fell hard and fell fast. Edmonton needed a healthy, capable Whitney to play a major role; instead he struggled to the point where he fell to third pairing work and then out of the lineup completely for stretches due to ineffective play.

The shot numbers here are particularly damning (they closely mirror the scoring chance numbers, too): with Whitney on the ice, the Oilers were out-shot 35-to-25 at 5-on-5; with him off the ice they were out-shot 31-to-28. Over an average hour, the opposition could be expect to attempt 20 shots more with Whitney on the ice than the Oilers would; with him on the bench the difference fell to seven. Over the course of the 2013 season, Whitney established himself as the team’s worst defenceman by a significant margin.

Instead, the Oilers decided to take the minimalist approach that characterized Tambellini’s tenure as GM: they retained their veterans – including Whitney – and made a small trade (adding depth centre Jerred Smithson for a draft pick). The hope was that a playoff push with Whitney would make up for whatever the Oilers would have gained for Whitney in trade. It didn’t work out; the Oilers (inevitably) collapsed and now Whitney will walk for nothing.

The final failed gamble? The decision to trade defenceman Lubomir Visnovsky for Whitney in the first place. While Whitney’s health problems have gotten progressively worse over his time in Edmonton – he was a much better defenceman the day the team acquired him than he is as he leaves, and that’s much more the result of an ugly run of injuries than it is any fault of the player’s – Visnovsky has found new life with the New York Islanders. Over 35 regular season games, the veteran blueliner played nearly 23 minutes per game, picking up 14 points and a team-best plus-12 rating (he also went plus-2 in the Islanders’ first-round loss to Pittsburgh). While Whitney’s declining play means there is no longer a place for him in Edmonton, Visnovsky just signed a new two-year contract that will see him earn just shy of $10 million over its term.

It was a bitter season for Whitney, and he concluded it on one last sour note, complaining to the media after season’s end that other players could have been scratched from the lineup in place of him. In some ways, it was an understandable comment from a frustrated veteran, but it was also an unfortunate final page in a difficult chapter for both team and player.

Previous year-end reviews at the Cult of Hockey:

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